Unexpected
by somehowunbroken
Summary: Evan goes fishing with Carson on Sunday. Character death.
1. Unexpected

"Major!"

Evan recognized the voice behind him immediately and turned, a smile already in place as Carson approached him. "Afternoon," he greeted, wiping his paintbrush across his shirt absentmindedly. He'd just finished washing it out and had been considering which color to use for the peculiar shade of violet in the sky when he'd heard the doctor's voice.

Carson drew up beside him. "That's quite lovely," he said as he took in the painting. "I'd had no idea you could paint like that, Evan."

"It's just a hobby," Evan said modestly. "My mother was an art teacher. Some things you pick up early on."

"If I were as good at any of my hobbies as your are at yours," Carson replied, "I'd give up medicine."

Evan turned back to his palette, hiding his grin. "You'd never."

Carson chuckled beside him. "It would be difficult," he agreed after a moment. "After all, medicine is my hobby as well."

"Don't I know it," Evan teased, and it was true. Since he and Carson had started to grow closer, to become friends rather than just doctor and patient, he'd seen that Carson was involved more with his work than most people. He lived and breathed it, moved through treatments and medications and patients in a complicated dance that left him exhausted but honestly fulfilled. He loved his work in a way that few ever did. Evan almost envied him that.

Evan paused, noticing that his brush hovered over a color closer to Caron's eyes than to the sky, and glanced up again. He swiftly chose a color that would be more appropriate and swiped it across a painted cloud, swirling his brush as he pulled it along.

"Oh!" Carson said a minute later. "I came out here with a question, actually." He paused and Evan pulled his brush back, turning away from the canvas again. Carson's gaze shifted from the painting to Evan's face, and he beamed in a way that Evan recognized as "trying to be convincing" but didn't quite make it. "I'd had plans to go fishing on the mainland today with Rodney, but he's scheduled some sort of lunch with his lady friend, and I wouldn't pull him from that. So I'm looking for a fishing buddy."

Evan took in, for the first time, the silly vest that Carson wore. Fishing line poked up out of one pocket; shiny lures dangled from another. The look on Carson's face was thinly veiled pleading as he asked, "Are you interested?"

Evan took another look at his painting, then at the sky. He really was just nitpicking at this point, and as he gave the canvas an evaluative glance, he said, "Give me fifteen, Doc. Let me just fix this cloud up here and we'll go after some record-breaking space trout."

It was closer to half an hour later, really, when Evan had finally finished the cloud formation to his liking and packed up his kit. He'd done exactly as his mother had always done, cleaning each brush carefully but efficiently, drying and storing, capping all of the paints, placing them back into their respective spots. He had just tucked his easel back away under his bead when his door chimes rang.

"Yeah," he yelled to the door, thinking it open. Carson bounded in, holding two fishing rods and beaming as if he'd won some sort of Pegasus lottery, to be going fishing with Evan. Evan, for his part, grinned back and grabbed a book from his bedstand. Carson scowled at him good-naturedly, and Evan just shook his head.

"I've been fishing before, Carson," he said as they headed for the door. "Long periods of doing nothing, occasionally interrupted by not catching fish. I'm bringing something else to do."

Carson's eyes twinkled. "I'm certain there's plenty to talk about." He paused. "Though talking generally scares the fish."

Evan rolled his eyes and took one of the poles from Carson's hand. Together, they grabbed the cooler and tackle box that Carson had somehow managed to drag down – "I had Lieutenant Stevens help me," he admitted when Evan asked – and made their way to the Jumper bay.

Evan headed automatically for the pilot's seat, but stood uncertainly next to it as Carson approached the front of the Jumper. They both had the gene, though Evan's expression of it was stronger, and Evan was unquestionably the more experienced pilot; this was, however, Carson's trip, and if he wanted to fly, Evan certainly wasn't going to get in his way. Carson, for his part, was shaking his head before Evan could even open his mouth.

"Please don't make me," the doctor almost whined. "Every time I get in a Jumper with Colonel Sheppard, he makes me fly it. Says it'll help me get used to it if there's ever a need." Carson rolled his eyes. "I keep reminding him that I flew a Jumper perfectly well in that horrifying storm, but he seems to keep conveniently forgetting that."

Evan grinned. "I'll fly," he promised. "This is your day to de-stress, too. I'm not gonna make you do anything you don't want to. I know you'll threaten me with the really big needles if I do." Carson smiled innocently as Evan continued. "Besides, you'll never see me turning down a chance to fly one of these. It's amazing."

"I'll never understand it," Carson sighed as he strapped himself into his seat. "Terrifying, that's what it is. But all of you military types, you just find it so fascinating."

"It is," Evan said, raising the Jumper from the ground with a simple thought. "Most aircraft, it's one kind of amazing, where you have to do all of this complicated stuff to get it to respond. There are switches and levers and all of this information to pay attention to, and then there's the joystick, learning which way to lean it, figuring it all out as you go. The first time you do it for real, not just in a simulation, it's incredible. With the Jumpers, though…" he trailed off with a sigh as the Jumper maneuvered left, then right, up and down, without Evan moving a single muscle. "And you don't feel a thing, either, with the inertial dampeners. I know guys who would literally chew their own arms off for the chance to fly a plane that reads your mind."

Carson was quiet for a moment. "I suppose I can understand the sentiment, if not the specifics," he replied slowly. "I enjoy what I do, love it even, and I was happy with how I did my job on Earth. But since coming here, I've learned so much, used such amazing technology, been able to practice medicine in a whole new way. I could go back to how I'd always done it, but I'd feel like I was doing less than my best, now."

Evan thought through the words, translated them to his own situation, his own feelings on the subject. "Yeah," he said finally. "It's not that I do my job differently now. It's that I do more of my job. I'm a different person here, with what I can do. Not a better person or a worse person, necessarily, but _more_ of a person. More of myself."

Carson nodded. "Artistic _and_ eloquent," he said, the words teasing but the tone understanding. "Who knew?"

"More of myself," Evan repeated with a smile as he set the Jumper down. "Now, about those space trout…"

They spent the next hour or so with their poles in the water, waders pulled up to their hips, talking about little things that had no consequence. They were both completely relaxed, neither having caught a fish or even come close to it, really, when they heard the sound. It was low, almost like thunder, and Evan saw Carson scan the cloudless sky while his own gaze sharpened to the distant shape of Atlantis. It didn't waver, didn't fall, but Evan could feel his connection to the City thrum in his chest, and he was running for the radio he'd left in the Jumper almost before he knew he was moving. Carson gasped a split second later, following him in.

"This is Lorne," Evan barked into his radio as Carson struggled to fit his own into his ear. "What's going on?"

There was a frantic moment of silence before the answer came back in the form of Sheppard's growl. "Lorne, you have Beckett?"

"Aye," Carson confirmed over the radio. "We're on the mainland."

"Get back here," was the reply. "Both of you. There's been an explosion."

The flight back was terse, faster than Evan had known the Jumpers could fly, with sporadic updates on what they knew about the situation. Apparently, one of the members of the science team – a Dr Huston, whom Evan hadn't known but Carson apparently had – had spontaneously blown herself to pieces. There were a few dead, the doctor among them, and several injured, some badly. There was a pause in Sheppard's voice when he said, "Teyla's – something lodged in her side, she's in surgery now," and Carson was murmuring over the radio soothingly, his hands fidgeting on his thighs. Evan pushed the Jumper faster, if that was possible, thought _home home home_ and in no time at all was landing in the Jumper bay. Carson was running for the lower levels before Evan could even get the ramp down all the way.

Evan showed up in the infirmary shortly thereafter; Sheppard had given him the basics of the situation and told him to either "organize the infirmary or keep McKay busy while I do," and Evan had headed out the door without a backwards glance. He found himself near Teyla's bedside and glanced around. Everyone was busy, so he took a seat by her bed and glanced around, taking a fuller assessment of the chaos around him.

Most of the available beds were occupied and surrounded by anxious friends and coworkers. The nurses and support staff looked harried, half of them trying to tend to patients while the other half attempted to shoo out the visitors. Evan sighed and stood, making his way to the nearest bed to convince the botanist hovering over Lieutenant Cadman that she would, in fact, be fine without him, and that he should, probably, leave her to her treatment. Dr. Parrish taken care of, Evan moved to the next bed with the same intentions.

He left Ronon sitting by Teyla's bedside when he'd made his way around. He wasn't causing trouble, and anyway, the man was immovable.

Evan instead made his way to the observation room above the operating theater. Carson was inside with a young man, treating a leg wound that didn't look incredibly serious. He was just stitching up the side of the gash when an announcement came over the citywide system in Dr. Weir's strained voice: "Dr. Watson, Dr. James Watson, please contact Central Command immediately."

Evan saw Carson jerk in surprise and motion to the young man's chart, then frown and begin to speak into his earpiece. Evan could see the emotions play out across Carson's face, even from this distance: surprise, fear, worry, and then a grim determination that had Evan running into the operating room even as the nurses were running out.

"What?" Evan demanded as he looked at the young man, unconscious on the bed. Carson, for his part, didn't even look surprised to see him.

"He was with Dr. Huston," Carson summed up. "Apparently, he has an explosive tumor somewhere behind his lungs. I'm going to find it and take it out."

"Explosive tumor?" Evan repeated, washing his hands and moving to stand behind Carson, who nodded.

"Ancient device of some sort," Carson explained.

Evan shrugged. "The Ancients were all insane," he pointed out, not for the first time, and Carson spared him a brief grin. "I'll give you a hand in here, as best I can."

"Appreciated," Carson said, then: "Hand me those retractor clamps."

The next twenty minutes were spent in near silence, punctuated only when Carson asked Evan for another piece of equipment, or to hold this, or to please move. Evan did exactly as told, and what seemed like an eternity later, Carson held up a pair of forceps, clamped around a small black mass. He put it down slowly, clamping the top down on the cooler that they'd repurposed into a Hazmat container, and turned back to the man on the table. Evan tapped his earpiece as Carson began to stitch the man back up.

"Colonel," he reported, picking up the cooler with exquisite care. "Doc got it out. I'm moving to the bomb squad with the package now."

"Careful," was the only reply he got. Carson looked up momentarily.

"Agreed, Major," Carson said. "Do be careful with that. I've had quite enough of surgery for the day."

Evan nodded slightly, concentrating on the task at hand – the task _in_ his hands, quite literally. The cooler was held as firmly as he could manage between his palms, fingers curling around the far edges, arms positioned to suspend the entire box a few inches from his body. He wouldn't jostle it when he walked, if he held it this way. It would make it to the bomb squad, as long as he moved carefully.

Evan held out a breath he hadn't known he was holding as the Marines in Hazmat suits took the cooler from him a few moments later. He tapped his radio and reported his success. "Handed it off. Headed back to the infirmary now."

The last thing Evan thought, flying through the air a split second later, was that this wasn't how he'd expected his day off to go, not at all.

-0-

Carson wasn't sure how he'd gotten here, honestly. He was standing in a suit that didn't quite fit him any more, one that itched at his throat, as the breeze blew gently across this field of the fallen. It was a lovely place, really, and Carson smiled as he thought of Evan's artistry; he would have liked this place, the lay of the land and the tree over the plot, a hill curving gently, gracefully in the distance against a dark forest. Evan would have been able to mix the perfect colors, a combination of greens and blues and browns, to capture the scene quite perfectly.

Instead, though, Evan was being buried here. They were putting him beneath that tree, and he'd never paint again.

There had been words back on Atlantis, praising courage and bravery and devotion to duty, and Carson had almost burst out with his own words about friendship and artistry and a painting of the sky so lovely that it made him ache in his soul, but he'd somehow kept them in. Here, though, the words had been of love and spoken with a sorrow so deep that Carson had brought his own thoughts back, sharing with Evan's family about joy and beauty and a soul that Carson was going to miss powerfully.

It would only occur to him later that if he'd not asked Evan to fish with him that the man would be tucked away on Atlantis even now, perhaps painting the sunset.

Carson would have loved a painting like that for his quarters. Now he'd never have the chance.


	2. To Remember

Nobody wanted the job, but everyone felt some sort of responsibility for it; in the end, John had suggested they draw straws, and that's what made Carson volunteer. That's how he ended up standing in Evan's room, a few empty boxes by the late Major's door, his things left neatly in their places as if waiting for their owner to walk back in and claim them.

They would be waiting a long time, if it came to that.

Carson sighed and closed his eyes, trying not to let the guilt gnaw at his stomach. He had made a choice, and Evan had made a choice, and Carson knew that those choices combined had both doomed Evan and saved Carson. He's mostly dealt with it; at least, that was what he told Dr. Heightmeyer, what he forced out when Elizabeth or John sent him shadowed glances in the mess.

Carson still blamed himself, though, at least in part. He would carry Evan with him for the rest of his life, just as he carried Hoff and Michael and Aiden and every other loss he hadn't been able to prevent.

He set the first empty box down on Evan's desk, hesitating for a moment before opening the top drawer. It was stationary, mostly, and blank requisition forms; Carson set them on the desk to be given to John. Pens and pencils were sorted similarly, until Carson came to the back of the drawer and found an envelope labeled in Evan's flowing hand. _Mom._

Carson very carefully set that envelope aside and tried not to think about what it might contain. His mind couldn't help but to wander to a similar envelope, tucked inside his own desk, wondering if the contents were anything alike. They probably were.

The desk went quickly; most of the things there were Atlantis property, anyway, except for the framed pictures on the desktop. Those went into the box.

Carson moved to the dresser, sorting BDUs from civilian clothing and folding it all neatly before packing it away. There were more photographs here, and Carson carefully wrapped them in the soft folds of cloth before placing them in the box.

He took the toiletries from the bathroom, the linens from the bed, and the books from the shelf, sealing up the box and grabbing another before he turned to the closet. This was where Evan had been storing his paints that day. This was what Carson most wanted to see and most dreaded.

The box of paints and brushes could travel on its own, he decided, setting it aside and reaching for the cloth-draped rectangle at the back. Carson couldn't help but gasp as the old sheet fell from the painting. It was not, as he had expected, the unfinished seascape that Evan had been working on before they'd gone fishing. It was a full view of Atlantis, as Carson had seen it from a Jumper, the spires rising high above the sprawling arms of the city, surrounded by an endless sea. There was a certain gentleness to it, the colors muted and edges softened, that made Carson's chest tighten. This painting spoke to him of _home_.

There were others; paintings of the mainland, sketches of the men on Evan's team, some of members of the expedition gathered around a table that Carson realized with a jolt was the one in the conference room. He felt a smile steal across his face like a ghost; apparently, the conscientious Major hadn't always been taking notes.

The unfinished painting was at the back of the stack, wrapped again in another clean cloth, and Carson let his fingers trail over the whorls and strokes of sea and sky. He had no way of knowing what the painting would have looked like at the end, if this was merely to be a backdrop for something more or if it was the end in itself. He had only his imagination now, only his own thoughts of what he might have put there, of what Evan had seen when he looked across the cloud-filled sky.

Carson's eyes were burning with unshed tears, looking at the possibility in the painting and knowing that it would remain forever unfinished, stuck somewhere between here and there, the known and the unknown. He ached with the thought that he'd never know, that Evan would never again pick up a brush and pull it through color after color, would never wipe a brush absentmindedly across an old shirt, would never smell like paint thinner and oils and contentment as he had when Carson had stumbled across him that day.

Carson had to put the painting down, had to sit, had to put a firm lid on the guilt and pain that threatened to overwhelm him. Some things were too much.

He glanced at the paintings again, ideas slowly forming, and he tapped on his radio. "Colonel Sheppard?"

"Go ahead," he heard almost instantly.

"Can you come down to…" Carson swallowed. "Are you free?"

John walked in the door less than a minute later, not looking like he'd been running to get there. Carson suspected that he'd been nearby the entire time. "Hey, Carson."

Carson gave him a trembling smile. "John," he said, and gestured to the painting of Atlantis that he'd set on the bed. He heard John's intake of breath as he took it in. "Did you know he painted?"

John shook his head minutely, transfixed. "Said his mom was an artist," he recalled, fingers tracing the lines of the painting through the air. "I didn't know he was, too."

"Aye," Carson affirmed, though it was clearly unnecessary. He hesitated. "I know we're to send his effects home, but I'd like to hang that somewhere. In the mess, perhaps, or the rec room. Somewhere that it would be seen." John just nodded, still staring at the painting, eyes wondering at details and the overwhelming sense of welcome that it portrayed.

"I'd also request to keep this one," Carson continued, more quietly, and gestured to the clouds and the sea, the unfinished mystery. "For myself." John stared at it in turn and tilted his head to one side, but nodded.

"Thank you," Carson said softly, wrapping the bit of cloth back around the unfinished painting and tucking it under an arm. "The rest is all together, ready to go back."

"Thanks," John said, tearing his eyes from Evan's Atlantis and stepping up to put a hand on Carson's shoulder. They stood for a minute, neither saying a word, and then John squeezed his shoulder and tapped his radio, calling for a Marine to help with the boxes.

Carson wandered through the hallways of the City, painting under his arm, thinking about Evan and unfinished business and things that should never have happened. The painting was like a burning coal; he shifted it from one arm to the other, suddenly wondering why he'd wanted it so badly, why he needed this silent reminder of his failures.

Carson headed for his quarters and set the painting down, still wrapped in its sheet, on his desk. It was propped against the wall, and he hesitated for a moment before unwinding the cloth. He moved the few steps from his desk to his bed and sat, finally looking at the painting.

He gasped and couldn't help the tears that welled in his eyes. The painting was sitting just so, and Carson could see the clouds stretching through the window beyond, a seamless transition from canvas to sky. The dips and swirls of the clouds played perfectly across Carson's vision, and for a moment he could see the painting finished, the sea blending to the sky and continuing up and on forever.

This was what he'd needed to see, he suddenly realized. This was why he'd taken the painting. This was completion where there never would be, was the realization that the difference between what should be and what is perhaps isn't so great as we think.

This was the memory of Evan, of Aiden and all the others, of celebrating what they had been instead of mourning what they would never be.

This was acceptance and maybe the beginnings of healing, the start of peace.


End file.
